The World Quizzing Championship take the form of a written quiz taken by individuals using no reference materials that is conducted at various points around the world. Each competitor faces the same questions (translated into their mother tongue in many cases) at approximately the same time.

There are 240 questions, divided into eight categories, and two hours in which to answer them. At the end of the allotted time, the papers are marked and each quizzers' top seven marks will be added together to find the winner.

The categories [and general content areas] are a combination of academic and popular culture topics including:

The 2nd Annual Transatlantic Quiz (www.transatlanticquiz.com) will be coming up Saturday, March 15th 2008. This quiz is conducted in the format of the World Quizzing Championships, but focuses on US/Canada/UK material.

We are looking for organizers that can find a place to hold the quiz and report back results. Organizers can participate in the quiz, which is taken without use of reference materials by individuals. Each half of the test (four categories) will take on hour, and there will be a couple of marking times where folks swap papers for grading, so figure on about 3 hours total. In the past, the event has been held in college classrooms, bars, restaurants, and even an athletic club. This quiz will be provided free of charge, and as it will be held on the weekend leading up to St. Patricks day, it may be attractive to Irish pubs in your area. The key is to have the quiz at approximately the same time (+/- a couple hours) everywhere, so that in North America this would take place mid-day, while in the UK it would be in the evening.

Last year in the US the quiz was taken by 56 people in Boulder, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; Jacksonville, Florida; Kansas City, Missouri; Madison, Wisconsin; New York, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; and Seattle, Washington. This year we'd like to quadruple the participation and double the locations. If you are interested in establishing a location for the quiz, please send a message to iqausa@gmail.com with your name, address where hardcopy of the quiz can be shipped priority mail arriving March 13 or 14, your phone number, description and address of the quiz venue, and about how many people you expect or have capacity to entertain. The organizer should report back results via email within 2 hours after the end of the event.

This quiz is good preparation for the World Quizzing Championships to be held Saturday June 7th, 2008. Thus far, the WQC will have participants in Belgium Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Liberia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, and more that are being added in the coming months. An ideal plan for the USA for this event would be to have 10 locations, including from west to east Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, and New York. Previous event website is at http://www.wqc2007.com